Neill Blomkamp hasn’t directed a feature film since 2015. And while he’s been working on various short films, advertisements and attempting new instalments of classic franchises like Alien and RoboCop, he hasn’t quite been able to live up to the wunderkind label people tagged him with after he burst onto the scene with District 9.
His two films since then, Elysium and Chappie, didn’t hit with audiences nearly as much, but with a new sci-fi thriller in the works – Inferno, starring Taylor Kitsch – there’s a chance he can get back to his status as one of the top sci-fi filmmakers around.
Or maybe he’ll do something completely different, like secretly shoot a supernatural horror movie during the pandemic. Per Deadline, Blomkamp has made a film with the backing of AGC Studios in British Columbia over the summer. There are no plot details, but it’s reportedly something Blomkamp always wanted to make and he expects to be finished by the spring.
The cast is mostly made up of Canadian actors, and, even though it’s a supernatural horror, there is still reportedly a strong sci-fi and VFX component like the director’s other movies. So we’ll see if Blomkamp can bounce back and recapture what made him such a hot name in the early 2010s.
Shifting genres sounds like a solid enough plan to get the creative juices flowing once again, and this sounds like the kind of independently-funded original project that usually gets filmmakers the chance to direct the next film in a major franchise, so if Blomkamp is still pining to helm an Alien film, this might be his in.
Filming was pushed back on Inferno due to COVID-19, so expect to see this horror film first. It does not currently have a release date.
#Peace.Love.Blomkamp
